2006 November 21 | Hanlon's Razor

Video: US soldiers taunting Iraqi children with water

By Hanlon, on November 21st, 2006 at 10:43 PM

This video is just infuriating. Watch and see what a few of our upstanding troops are doing in Iraq with their “free time”. Afterwards, pause and reflect on the phrase “they hate us for our freedom.”

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Now, as a general rule, any time something like this happens on video you can be sure of two things: this isn’t the only incident like it, and it’s probably not the worst. H/t to reader Namnori for sending it in.

A few recent polls on Bush and Iraq

By Hanlon, on November 21st, 2006 at 06:19 PM

I would love to see one poll come out that’s good news for the president or for the war. It would make me feel a little better, because like I’ve said a thousand times it’s way more comforting to think the country’s going in a good direction than to be able to go “hooray, another shot at Bush!” Anyway, poll #1: People like Bush 41 more than Bush 43.

Six in 10 said the elder Bush, who served one term from 1989-1993, did a better job in office, according to a poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation. Twelve percent said both were equally good or bad, and 2 percent offered no opinion.

The poll also found that 59 percent disapprove of President Bush’s handling of his job; 38 percent approve of it.

So, at best, 26% of people like Dubya more than HW. That’s just amazing, if my knowledge of the former president’s low popularity is correct. So we know from a while ago that people like Clinton more than Dubya, they like HW more than Dubya, let’s just keep going back and see how long it takes before a president is less popular than George Jr.

Anyway, poll #2: Iraqis overwhelmingly want us out of Iraq within a year.

The survey by much-respected World Public Opinion (WPO), taken in September, found that 74% of Shiites and 91% of Sunnis in Iraq want us to leave within a year. The number of Shiites making this call in Baghdad, where the U.S. may send more troops to bring order, is even higher (80%). In contrast, earlier this year, 57% of this same group backed an “open-ended” U.S. stay.

By a wide margin, both groups believe U.S. forces are provoking more violence than they’re preventing — and that day-to-day security would improve if we left.

Ouch. America doesn’t want us in Iraq, Iraq doesn’t want us in Iraq, they even support attacks on American soldiers. Imagine what’ll happen to those extra 20,000+ troops that McCain and others want to send over.

Muslims kicked off plane for praying

By Hanlon, on November 21st, 2006 at 03:00 PM

This must be that post-9/11 thinking I hear so much about. I think it’s a sign that our war against terrorism isn’t going well when a few imams can be ejected from an airline simply because they were trying to pray.

“They were treated like terrorists … humiliated,” said Abu Hannoud, civil rights director for the Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who said the men were taken off the US Airways flight in handcuffs.

He said the men were still trying to find a flight back to Phoenix where most are affiliated with a major mosque after the carrier refused them passage following the incident on Monday evening.

“We are concerned that crew members, passengers and security personnel may have succumbed to fear and prejudice based on stereotyping of Muslims and Islam,” added Nihad Awad, executive director of the council, in a statement from the group’s Washington headquarters.

Ponder that last paragraph for a few moments. They were removed from the plane due to fears that the crew and passengers would be prejudiced against the Muslims? Where has our country gone in these past few years? And, of course, the ultimate irony:

Hannoud said in an interview that the men had been attending a three-day meeting of the North American Imams Federation in the Minneapolis area “discussing how to build bridges” between Muslims and American society, and that the FBI and local police had been informed in advance about the meeting.

Whoops-a-daisy.

Scientists mounting an effort against religion

By Hanlon, on November 21st, 2006 at 02:14 AM

I often avoid religious talk, but now and again a story rolls around that just begs me to tackle the issue. Take this, some scientists at a recent summit saying that the world needs to break from the shackles of religion and stick to science more.

Somewhere along the way, a forum this month at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., which might have been one more polite dialogue between science and religion, began to resemble the founding convention for a political party built on a single plank: in a world dangerously charged with ideology, science needs to take on an evangelical role, vying with religion as teller of the greatest story ever told.

…

“We should let the success of the religious formula guide us,” Dr. [Carolyn] Porco said. “Let’s teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty. It is already so much more glorious and awesome — and even comforting — than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know.”

What has baffled me for some time is this belief that we as Americans should default our children to Christianity, and then as they get older they can make the decision on their own to defect away to whatever else they’d like. That we should, as in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, first tell them that these stories are real and then whenever they’re older they can change their minds.

This is not only unfair to the children themselves, but it’s potentially hampering the progress of humanity at large. Whatever we’re taught as children will stick with us permanently, and if a child is indoctrinated with the Bible then it will be very difficult to get him away from it. Whatever lessons he’s taught will be there nearly forever and all else will be considered a betrayal of such.

There are those who would consider this a good thing. Instill the values of the Bible in them early so they hold. But this doesn’t give them a chance to decide, we’re telling them what is and what isn’t. What should be done is teaching children their options, and letting them choose what they believe.

Anyone afraid of this is simply afraid that their beliefs won’t be able to stand up against the others. Teach our children evolution, what abortion truly is (not just that it’s “killing babies”), what homosexuals are, the nature of our universe, and the concept of the Big Bang. Teach them the Bible’s answers, teach them science’s answers. Let them decide.